information aesthetics

distributions of sport world records

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:23:39 +1100

an interesting news article about the distribution of world records in sporting events & the recent 200m sprint at the Olympic Games in particular. the story links to several interactive graphs that highlight the lack of a normal distribution, as outliers are more prevalent due to the extreme tails of highly selected samples, where usual statistical patterns rarely hold.

[links: blogs.nytimes.com (overview article) & nytimes.com (interactive Bolt graphic) & nytimes.com (history of world records)]

TerraForm people-based infographic movie

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:25:59 +1100

an 8 minute "lively" infographic movie about the progress & problems of globalisation. enjoy the people-based bar & line graphs, & top-view world maps.

[links: youtube.com (English) & youtube.com (German)]

subway map bathroom tiling

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:05:05 +1100

several design for a bathroom based on pixel drawings made out of classic 4 by 4 inch colored tiles. the one based on a subway map seems quite infosthetic.

[link: blogs.nytimes.com|thnkx Remy]

Mycrocosm personal data graph portal

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:22:35 +1100

an online web service that allows users to visualize & share snippets of all sorts of data in form of simple statistical graphs. the Mycrocosm project focuses on social communication & the creation of individual & biographical data profiles (e.g. Feltron's annual report), rather than possible uses of data tracking (e.g. Track-n-Graph) or social visualization (e.g. Many Eyes).

the project seems to come very close to Feltron's Daytum (seemingly still in private beta).

[link: media.mit.edu]

Fleshmap crowdsourcing sex

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:29:56 +1100

an online visualization designed by Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg & the crowdsourcing specialists at Dolores Labs, which explores the relationship between the body & its visual & verbal representation.

the Touch body heatmap investigates the collective perception of erogenous zones, based on the input of 100s of people that ranked how good it would feel to touch or be touched by a lover in different points of the body.

the Look interface analyzes the individuality and hidden surprises that each body reveals when bared by abstracting & categorizing visual forms of male nipples & female breasts.

the Listen interface charts how often a specific body part is mentioned in different music genres genre, based on a sample of 1000s songs.

[link: fleshmap.com|via doloreslabs.com]

physical information sculptures

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:47:16 +1100

a collection of physical data sculptures made from found objects of graphs & charts mapping a variety of datasets. the linear geometric forms could easily be dismissed as homage to minimalist object making until the titles reveal their true meaning. the sculptures are pictorial devices measuring human behavior, ranging from military expenditure, US population by race, global tobacco production & so on.

[link: joshuacallaghan.com|via designboom.com & flowingdata.com]

Ben Shneiderman as interface to infovis

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:34:29 +1100

a small interactive homage to Ben Shneiderman, as an interface resembling his portrait photo, made out of almost a 1,000 thumbnail pictures of different visualization techniques, such as diagrams, charts, maps, tables or visual metaphors.

21st August marks the birthday of Ben, the famous Professor at the University of Maryland who provided fundamental research in the field of human–computer interaction, & more recently, on information visualization, for instance inventing the treemap visualization technique for representing hierarchical data.

[link: visual-literacy.org (scroll to bottom of page)

visual poetry 2007 & 2008

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:35:30 +1100

a new set of generative visual themes that are directly created from, & visually accompany poems. each theme can be interactively explored online.

in the 2008 version, all words words in a poem based on their frequency in the text, which are placed on a line. the most frequent words are thus relatively large & placed on the left hand side. then, all words that appear in several poems are connected by a fluid red line. the width of the line is related to the length of the word in the regarding sequence.

the key visual of Poetry on the Road 2007 is based on the automatic retrieval of Flickr photos, as the it treats every word in a poem as a unique tag. each word is replaced by the most popular Flickr image. each photo is then cropped depending on the length & the frequency of the word it represents. the horizontal axis is defined by the length of the word, the vertical one by frequency.

[links: esono.com (2007) & esono.com (2008)]

wireless wifi strength heatmap

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:28:58 +1100

a visualization tool that is able to generate a wireless (WiFi, 802.11) heatmap based on signal strength. an obvious application is to find the best physical place or area to work wirelessly with the highest signal strength. the tool allocates a 2D grid that overlaps the geographical sample area, working out the average signal strength based on nearby sample points.

[link: slowchop.com|thnkx Martin]

debategraph debate maps

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:17:11 +1100

a Wiki-style global map of important debates that aims to visualize & deepen the understanding of the ways in which different debates are semantically interrelated. every debate map is provisional and open to iterative improvement by anyone who participates. over time, the debate maps mature into the definitive articulations of each debate. debates range from "Climate Change" over "Obama's Vice President" to "Can Computers Think?"

[link: debategraph.org]

John Lennon interview infographic movie

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:36:38 +1100

a beautiful "infographically" animated movie that illustrates a 1969 interview of John Lennon by a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan. armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, Jerry snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto & convinced him to do an interview about peace. using the original interview recording as the sole soundtrack, the movie titled "I Met the Walrus" suspends a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation.

the video was also nominated for an Oscar for "Best Animated Short" at the 2008 Academy Awards.

[link: imetthewalrus.com & youtube.com (trailer & interview with animators)|via realitysandwich.com]

analogue eco-visualization

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:23:55 +1100

an analogue, physical information sculpture that displays the daily average of CO2 concentration through a chemical reaction in which chalk particles are formed, which in turn changes the opacity of water encapsulated in plastic tubes. the "Statlab" installation samples air direct from a local area, so that the differences in water clarity creates an analogue graph in which the difference in the amount of chalk particles per tank is a global measure for the fluctuating CO2 concentration within one 1 week.

[link: bitlek.nl|thnkx Tjerk]

Lego-based time-tracking

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:26:33 +1100

an alternative way to represent time schedule tracking by stacking different lengths of Lego blocks as a way to convey different sequential time periods. stacking hourly rows on top of each other builds up the whole day, while color represents the different projects at hand. a whole week of time tracking is created by setting up a series of rainbow-colored days.

[link: jexp.de|thnkx Christopher]

Google Trends graphs aggregator

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:54:32 +1100

multiple, superimposed logarithmic line graphs that show the "big picture" by aggregating the activity graphs from Google Trends for Websites. the domains searched within the last hour are rendered in brighter colors & gradually fade away. red lines indicate sites which are losing traffic. blue lines are gaining

[link: coverpop.com|via krazydad.com|thnkx Jim]

product space network graph

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:57:08 +1100

a detailed network representation giving an overview of the international products space, with different colors for each product class (e.g. petroleum, animal products, cereals, machinery, chemical, electronics), node size denoting the average income per-capita associated with that good & link color indicating a range in the proximity values

[link: chidalgo.com]